Research & reports

Noah Zerbe · · Global

Failures in the mainstream industrialized food system have increased interest in alternative food systems. These alternatives include urban agriculture, community supported farms, school and community gardens, and fair trade. Despite their diversity, these emergent systems share a common vision for food provision based on social and environmental justice.

Ferne Edwards, Dave Mercer · Local Environment · Australia (Melbourne)

This paper discusses the use of food mapping in the "Meals in Metropolis" undergraduate course at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. The course introduced Industrial Design and Landscape Architecture students to critical issues of food security and sustainability in urban design. Students produced food chain maps, neighborhood food maps, and redesign posters, which are concluded to reveal an emerging landscape of innovative food production in Melbourne, potentially leading to a more resilient, distributed urban food system.

Pablo Torres Lima, Alfonso Chávez-Muñoz, Gerardo Ávila-Jiménez, Sergio Contreras-Prado · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Mexico (Mexico City)

This article analyzes the principal components of a planning process that promotes the development of agricultural production zones in Xochimilco-Tlahuac, Mexico City. The experience was conceptualized in 2008 with the integration of data obtained through fieldwork, interviews, ethnographic techniques, and geomatics. The study highlights the critical need for district or metropolitan authorities to support urban agriculture to address various city development issues and concludes that re-assessing socio-territorial organization in the study region is also necessary to achieve an integrated, habitable, and sustainable city.

Michelle P. Corrigan · OhioLink ETD Center (Ohio Library and Information Network) · United States (Baltimore, Athens)

Food insecurity and food-related health concerns are growing in the United States, leading to increased engagement with food systems through community food security approaches like community gardening. In-depth interviews and field observations in Baltimore, Maryland, and Athens, Ohio, examined the challenges of community gardening and the extent of people's involvement in the food system. While community gardens contribute to engagement, additional assistance such as education, policy, and funding is needed to enhance food security.

Kohei Makita, Eric M. Fèvre, Charles Waiswa, Mark Bronsvoort, Mark C. Eisler, Susan C. Welburn · Land Use Policy · Uganda

This paper describes a spatial representation of the peri-urban interface (PUI) of Kampala, Uganda, and identifies socio-economic factors related to peri-urbanicity using rapid rural mapping. It notes that urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) in rapidly expanding cities carries public health risks, such as zoonotic disease transmission. The study provides a methodology for describing the PUI in developing countries.

서향숙 · 의철학연구 · Global

This paper discusses the environmental and health issues arising from modern food culture, focusing on industrial and pastoral food chains as explored by Michael Pollan. It examines environmental pollution and GMO food issues within industrial food chains, and problems with semi-organic corporate food systems in pastoral chains. The study proposes urban agriculture, including school gardens, as a solution for a healthy food chain for future generations, integrating the concept of "food justice."

Éric Duchemin, Fabien Wegmuller, Anne-Marie Legault · VertigO · Canada (Montreal)

A 2010 study on urban agriculture (AU) in Montreal, Canada, examined the city-managed community garden program and six collective gardens managed by community organizations. These AU initiatives, aimed at food security, socialization, and education, were found to serve as significant vegetable production sites and venues for socialization and education, fostering individual and collective social development in neighborhoods with a strong presence of economically disadvantaged populations.

Marina Moraes Diniz de Oliveira Queiroz · · Sweden

This work studies urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) and alternative food production strategies, aiming to connect current food systems, urban structures, and climate change. It discusses urban planning, transport, waste management, and localized food production, proposing solutions for a Swedish context. The work argues for utilizing arable land in and near cities and integrating local food production with sustainable transport to prepare for reduced fossil energy and global warming.

William H. Friedland · Rural Sociology · Global

This article explores strengthening alternative agrifood movements by mobilizing academic researchers. It proposes a new organization, "Alternative Agrifood Researchers without Borders," to utilize researchers' skills and structural position. The goal is to enhance movements, reduce inequalities, and improve academic research quality by paralleling existing state and market structures while focusing on progressive objectives.

Denise · TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology · Global

This course explores the sociological aspects of food, examining the cultural and social values that organize the biological need to eat. It investigates the social relations involved in food production, distribution, preparation, and consumption, including topics like food and identity, the agri-food system, food-related social movements, and the unequal distribution of food. The course considers the consequences of food on social relationships and population health.

Andrew Flachs · Electronic Green Journal · United States

This paper explores the social and cultural effects of urban gardening in the greater Cleveland area, noting that the social impact of community gardens is less studied than other benefits. The author's fieldwork found that many gardeners combine utilitarian functions with environmentalist ideology, contrary to some authors who claim that gardeners are preoccupied with economic impact, leading to a biased conclusion about motivations. The paper aims to convey the complexity of use, function, and intent in these communal spaces.

Amy Oprean · Human Biology · United States

This abstract introduces Kami Pothukuchi, Ph.D., director of SEED Wayne, a volunteer-based organization at Wayne State University. SEED Wayne focuses on building sustainable food systems on campus and in Detroit communities. The organization conducts research projects to explore Detroit's potential for sustainability in urban agriculture and local food systems.

Hiran Moran Ramon Soriano-Robles · Ateliê Geográfico · Mexico (Mexico City)

In peri-urban agriculture in Mexico City, a traditional multi-cropping agro-ecosystem combining diverse species like maize, beans, and amaranth is preserved. Maize and amaranth are central to productive activities and are part of Mexico City's biological and cultural heritage. The conservation and utilization of this diversity can enhance the genetic potential of native crops, contribute to local agricultural development and sustainability, and potentially offer alternatives for a future global food crisis.

Nancy Karanja, Fiona Yeudall, S Mbugua, Mary Njenga, Gordon Prain, Donald C. Cole, Alexandra L. Webb, Daniel Sellen, Christopher Gore, Jennifer Levy · International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability · Kenya (Nakuru)

This paper outlined the conception, design, and implementation of a project aimed at strengthening technical, environmental, financial, and social capacity for urban agriculture (UA) among HIV-affected households in Nakuru, Kenya. Key lessons learned included the value of multi-stakeholder partnerships, the crucial role of self-help group organizations, and the importance of institutional commitments to support farming by vulnerable persons. The usefulness of mixed-methods evaluative tools for monitoring progress was also highlighted.

Chris Carlsson, Francesca Manning · Antipode · Global

Nowtopia identifies a new basis for a shared experience of class, characterized by an exodus from wage labor and the embrace of meaningful, freely chosen, unpaid work. Nowtopian communities are largely grounded in unpaid practical work, such as urban gardening/agriculture, which gradually reverses the extreme atomization of modern life. These practices represent a decentralized, uncoordinated collective research and development effort exploring a potentially post-capitalist, post-petroleum future.

Kwasi Appeaning Addo · Remote Sensing · Ghana (Accra)

This paper discusses the need for sustainable management of urban and peri-urban agriculture in Accra, Ghana. A lack of reliable data on the extent of urban/peri-urban areas used for farming has hindered the development of sustainable policies to manage urban farming in Accra. Ground-based survey methods are problematic and prohibitively expensive, making accurate assessment of urban farming's future role difficult.

Paule Moustier, Nguyễn Thị Tân Lộc · Agritrop (Cirad) · Vietnam

In Vietnam, urban agriculture significantly contributes to food supply and employment. In 2002, it supplied an estimated 44% of Hanoi's food needs, with over 70% of leafy vegetables originating within a 30 km radius of the city. Approximately 30% of the population in Hanoi Province and Ho Chi Minh City's peri-urban districts are engaged in agriculture.

Ephraim Kigozi Nabakwa, Patrick Kizza Kagyi, David Sserunkuuma Masereka, Grace Nakimbugwe Otim · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Uganda (Kampala)

This qualitative research, conducted through interviews and focus groups with residents and leaders in Kampala's slums, examines urban agriculture as a resilience strategy. Urban agriculture projects demonstrated an average 30% increase in household food security and a 50% reduction in reliance on informal income sources. The study's development framework enhances the resilience capacity of these initiatives, offering policy recommendations for integration into formal programs and infrastructure support.

Jennifer Sumner, Heather Mair, Erin Nelson · International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability · Canada (Ontario)

This paper presents a case study of Fourfold Farm CSA, an urban agriculture exemplar in south-western Ontario, Canada. Analysis of in-depth interviews with CSA members and co-founders revealed that the farm serves as more than just a source of organic food. It links urban food consumers with producers through cultural activities, emphasizing civic engagement and community.

C. Clare Hinrichs · · United States (Pennsylvania)

This paper argues for sociologists' engagement with sustainable food systems, illustrating the urgency of agricultural and food issues through sketches. One sketch highlights the 2009 tomato blight in the Northeast, which devastated crops from commercial to home gardens. This blight was traced to tomato starts from large nurseries supplying major retailers, demonstrating how local food can be linked to large-scale industrialized agriculture.

Los Angeles and Seattle · · United States

This study examines two case studies of urban farms in the United States: the South Central Farm in Los Angeles, California, and Marra Farm in Seattle, Washington. These sites and their embedded political and social processes reveal much about current food systems and struggles for justice. The research focuses on the conscious strategies immigrant communities utilize to reinvent space in these urban sites, forming place-based resistance and project identities.

Louiza M. Boukharaeva, Marcel Marloie · VertigO · Russia

This article examines collective urban gardening in Russia, practiced by city dwellers on various land types, as a significant reference for urban agriculture theory. This non-commercial family urban agriculture, supported by the state, businesses, and the population, acts as a crisis buffer by combining food production, health, recreation, leisure, child education, and artistic creation functions. The right to build housing on garden plots democratized urban access to land and nature, addressing poverty by extending a middle-class lifestyle element to the entire urban society.

Amy Linzie · School for International Training Digital Collections (School for International Training) · Cuba (Havana)

This paper explores how urban agriculture (UA) addresses urban food security and re-establishes food sovereignty in Havana, Cuba, and Mexico City, Mexico. Havana has developed sustainable UA methods addressing organic food access, while Mexico City's D.F. struggles to establish UA's relevance amidst poverty, resource shortages, and pollution. The study examines UA development in these two societies and its relevance to regaining food sovereignty.

Wang Cheng-yong, Wang, Cheng-Yong · AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) · China

This study analyzed the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of developing urban agriculture in the Pearl River Delta area, China. Strengths included natural resources, geographic, and technological advantages. Weaknesses involved land resources, labor costs, industrial scale, and personnel quality. Opportunities were identified in potential clients, favorable policies, and markets, while threats included conceptual factors and the urban-rural income gap. Based on this analysis, countermeasures and suggestions for urban agriculture development were proposed.

Kathryn Colasanti · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States (Detroit)

Using Detroit, Michigan as a case, this study developed a methodology based on secondary data to estimate the acreage needed to supply, as far as seasonally possible, the fresh fruits and vegetables consumed by city residents, and compared these requirements against a catalog of publicly owned vacant parcels in the city. Using high-yield, biointensive growing methods, 31% of seasonally available vegetables and 17% of fruit currently consumed by 900,000 people could be supplied on less than 300 acres, without extraordinary postharvest management or season-extension technology.